Full Circle
by Lawless67
Summary: Gotham's youngest prince returns to her, and finds her changed, and not. His family and his city are broken, but all things must come full circle. The king is dead. Long live the king. T for language and depictions of violence.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N** : Ok, so…I don't even know what this is. It is a strange mash-up of angst, fluff, and the desire to see all (most of) my babies grow up without dying—inspired by, believe it or not, the music of _The Lion King._ I don't even know. This will be a multichapter futurefic. And yes, it will eventually have a happy ending. Until then, angst abounds. This is my first attempt at real plot, not just fluff, so hopefully it works out. I own nothing. Please read and review.

 _his wings are clipped / and his feet are tied_

-Maya Angelou

Grandfather has gifted him with, of all things, a bird. Neither of them, however, is fond of irony, and so the bird is not a robin. It is a peregrine falcon, the fastest member of the animal kingdom, and so the only bird fit to play pet to an al Ghul. Damian returns from one of his escorted wanderings of the grounds—a brief respite from the utter blankness of his quarters—and the bird is there, encaged and unhappy about it. There is no note, but Damian knows that Grandfather is responsible.

The first day after the falcon's appearance, Damian ignores the squawks and rustlings. It will not stay. Grandfather does not give without cost, and if Damian touches the bird something unfortunate is sure to befall both of them. Its cage is placed in the corner of his room, and it makes a terrible racket and Damian does not know how to shut it up.

For those first days, they coexist—reluctantly. The bird's rations are left with Damian's own each morning and night, and he receives more than a few nicks and cuts attempting to feed the ungrateful creature. He wears gloves after the third day. He never considers leaving the falcon to its own devices. It is a living, breathing creature, and he is its only means of survival for the moment.

He thinks sometimes, in bouts of brooding—because he is _entitled_ to brood. He is Damian fucking Wayne, and brooding is practically a requirement of the teenage son of Bruce Wayne—that the falcon is the only living being whose company he is fit for now.

There is no judgment in the peregrine's dark eyes. There is no anything. The animal wants nothing from him but its sustenance, and that, in his current situation, is refreshing.

After a time, he begins to feel a certain kinship with the bird. Grandfather does not allow him outside his quarters and the compound—not while he's young and able-bodied and fresh from the teachings of one of Grandfather's most respected enemies. Damian, though no expert on the care of avian creatures, knows that the peregrine should not be kept in a cage he can circle with his arms. Ra's is not unintelligent, not unversed in the care of such creatures, and Damian knows he knows better. This captivity is wrong, and he rails at their guards in Arabic—until he notices one day that the bird's wings, elegant machinations of feathers and bone, do not paint the clean lines they are supposed to.

Grandfather has had its wings clipped.

If Damian was angry before, he is furious now. The presence of the falcon is not a gift, not meant as company for a lonely, captive boy. It is a show of dominance. Ra's holds the power in their newly reformed relationship. Damian is merely a houseguest, an unwilling pupil, and they both know this. The bird is unnecessary, but Grandfather would see the poetry in their similar situations, his and the bird's.

It is beautiful in a terrible way, the complete symmetry of their powerlessness.

He and the bird are stuck with each other. Robin and the captive falcon. It sounds like the title of one of those ridiculous children's books Richard used to read him years and years ago, when he was young ( _younger_ ) and jaded and innocent still.

He names the bird Aladdin—because it means faithful, and not because of the niggling memory of garish music and bright colors on a screen and the laughter of men he once called his brothers.

If they are to be imprisoned together for the foreseeable future they might as well be—well, not friends. There are no friends here. But allies, at least.

They find peace with each other, and Aladdin only snaps at him when Damian takes too long moving the bird's food from the tray to his cage.

Damian's discovery of the bird's mistreatment and consequent fury results in thick silence. And disobedience. Ra's had been in the habit of sending him books, research, lessons—because their truce, at this point, is too fragile and too completely fucked up to allow Damian anywhere close to a sword. Damian would complete the provided work in the allotted time, and new tomes would arrive.

For the first time since his arrival at his former home, Damian sends the work back incomplete.

Grandfather's displeasure, like Damian's anger, bears the familiar weight of silence.

For two weeks, Damian eats, sleeps, and cares for Aladdin. Unused to inactivity, he eases his body through the kata Mother taught him long ago each morning and night, fists empty where his swords should rest. For two weeks, Damian holds on to what defiance he can find and Ra's looks the other way.

On the fifteenth day since the full understanding of his grandfather's gift, he is summoned.

The journey to his grandfather's study is silent, his entrance even more so. Nothing has changed in the long years of his absence. Each and every object in the room has a purpose, and while Grandfather does enjoy the finest quality in all things, no excess will be tolerated. There is no softness in the room, just as there is none in the man who sired his mother.

"Sit, _Ibn al Xu'ffasch_." They are alone now. After all, discipline is a family matter.

Damian sits. He meets the green eyes that never quite lose the shadow of pit-madness. Ra's studies him from across the desk, long fingers steepled. There are deep lines around his eyes—crevices, really—that show his vast age despite the newness of this body. The lines are not attractive, not like ( _stop it, stop it_ ) Grayson's laugh lines are, and Damian thinks that his grandfather looks both hard as stone and thin as paper all at once.

Damian raises his eyebrows at the scrutinizing glance and allows his gaze to rove the room. Ra's continues to stare, so Damian shrugs.

"You have not changed the décor at all, Grandfather," he says, gesturing to the pair of ornately forged and styled scimitars crossed on the wall. "Does the same ornamentation not grow tedious after the first few centuries? Truly, I would not have minded if you had converted my quarters—as the Americans say—into a gym."

Ra's frowns. "Do not be coy, Damian. It is ill-fitting to an al Ghul."

Damian smirks, leaning forward, and his eyes harden.

"You forget, I think," he says softly, "that I am not an al Ghul. I am my father's son, and no amount of pretending on your part will change that." He sits back, carefully careless. "I forgive your forgetfulness, Grandfather. It is expected in one of your advanced years."

The murky, poisonous green churns in his grandfather's eyes. "The years amongst the lesser have turned your tongue crass and disrespectful. You will not speak to me so again."

Damian bristles but subsides, slouching in a way he knows Grandfather hates.

"I summoned you because of the dissatisfactory nature of your recent work," Ra's says pointedly. "Specifically, it was not completed."

"I am aware."

"I see. Would you care to explain?"

Damian nods slowly. "I came here, Grandfather, at your request, as your heir. I…realized the inevitability of accepting my inheritance, at your urging. I agreed to fill the vacancy my mother left at your side. I did not, however, agree to the position of desk clerk."

One gray-black eyebrow arches. "As my heir, you are required to fulfill certain duties. You must learn, Damian, and I have much to teach you. How am I to do this if you refuse my lessons?"

"Oh, I think your teachings come across quite clearly," Damian hisses. In his mind, sunlight shades gleaming feathers through the bars of a cage.

Ra's does not smile, but there is something pleased in his expression just the same. "The peregrine is my gift to you, a welcome home of sorts. And a reminder," he murmurs.

Damian rises abruptly. The room is large but sparsely furnished, and he crosses to the one open window. The window in his own room is tiny—too small for him to wriggle through—and now is the first real glimpse of the sky, of the outside world, that he's had in weeks.

It is another small, sharp cruelty, to not be able to see the sky. He has no means to mark the day's passing, and each minute stretches beyond what it should.

It's nearing sunset now, and the breath of moving air is cool on his cheeks, but it is not enough. They are high enough that he can see the sea over the walls of the compound, vast and beautiful and another barrier that keeps him from home.

He wants, for a moment, to jump. It would be over quickly, nearly painless, and the fall would be glorious—almost like flying again.

He doesn't, although he could, because Grandfather would be angry, and Grandfather's anger often manifests itself in violence—against his home and his father's chosen sons.

There have been enough threats leveled at his brothers to last a lifetime. The end of his life will not ensure their safety—only his obedience can do that.

"I need no reminders."

"It seems you do," Ra's intones, still watching him. "Your jaunt with the… _vigilantes_ …may have resulted in other undesirable habits—insubordination notwithstanding. The Detective's influence is not what I had hoped it to be."

Anger spikes in Damian's chest, but he tamps it down.

"My father's influence is not the only I am under. You compelled me here, and now you complain of my performance. Did you think I would be overjoyed to return? I do not understand."

Ra's stands, joins him at the window. "I do not expect you to be overjoyed, child. But you will treat me as courtesy and my authority demand, and you will do as I ask."

A cold, slim-fingered hand settles on his shoulder.

"If you do not, I will be displeased. And my displeasure will extend to the riff raff the Detective saw fit to raise with you. Do we understand each other?"

Damian does not turn his head, but nods. The fear is a tight fist around his throat, and he both loathes and clings to it with dizzying tenacity. It is the last tie to a broken family half a world away.

"Good." The hand retreats. Rustling indicates Ra's has resumed his seat. "Tomorrow I will send for you, and we will begin grooming you for leadership in the League. You have grown soft under that circus child's watch, and I will not have a soft heir. The training regimen I have devised is difficult, but not impossible."

Ra's pauses. "I want you to succeed, Damian. You are our future."

He feels the eyes boring into his back, straightens his shoulders. His eyes are fixed on the horizon when he answers.

"I understand, Grandfather."

Silence stretches after his affirmation, and his fingernails dig painfully into the windowsill, just out of Grandfather's sight.

"You are dismissed."

Damian glides to the door, numb.

"Do not disappoint me, Damian," Ra's says calmly, before Damian can slip out.

He nods, and the door slams shut behind him.

In the hall, one of the guards attempts to take his elbow. He shrugs away from the grip, and they continue on to his cell once more.

It is a grim place, his childhood home. He did not notice so much before, but after years of exposure to Richard's brightness and the vivacity of their small, patchwork family it seems much quieter.

There are men. There are always men willing and able to kill for compensation. His grandfather simply offers those men the belief that their killing is for the _greater good_ ,to assuage what little conscience they have. But men trained in the art of killing are not inclined to great amounts of noise. The silence leaves him with too much room for thought, and he does not like the paths his mind wants to travel.

His mother was not particularly noisy, but she spoke to him. She was both part and apart from the League and from him. Aloof, and the best of them. Talia is gone now, too. He does not mourn her. She held no true semblance of love for him in life, and he doubts much that death is very different.

Damian is the al Ghul legacy. The Wayne legacy has somehow escaped him, a cruel twist of fate. He is not overly concerned, although it hurts a bit. His father's name will not fall to ruin in his absence.

His brothers will make sure of that.

There is no room for failure. He cannot fail.

They arrive at his chamber, and he slips inside without fuss. Dinner is waiting on the nightstand, and the last of the dying sun spills in through the miniscule window, painting the whole room in a bloody light.

It is too quiet. When he moves to Aladdin's cage, he finds that he is not surprised.

The falcon's neck lies at an impossible angle, its damaged wings spread in an imitation of flight.

Beautiful and terrible, brutal and ugly and wasteful. That is the way of Ra's al Ghul.

Damian reaches a scarred hand through the bars of the cage, fingering the bird's feathers as he had never been allowed to during the creature's life. His face is wet for the first ( _the only_ ) time since he was brought here. He will not allow it again.

Grandfather has left him one last reminder, it seems.

 _Do not disappoint me, Damian._

He won't. He can't afford to.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Well, it's short and late and terrible, but here's part 2. I am untalented and exhausted, but hey I wrote something. Go nuts.

* * *

"Nice of you to show up," Jason growls, a trifle snarly because one, he's getting over a cold, and two, it's Tim. It's the principle of it, really.

They're hunched against the chill of November wind, perched easily on the (spotless, well-manicured) garden rooftop of some stupid fuck's fancy town home. Jason doesn't understand the appeal (utter idiocy) of decorating both the roof and the foundation of one's house with flowers and fluff. There's perfectly good grass right there on the ground, isn't there? Use it. Upper East Side, old Gotham, old money—he digresses. He can smell the stink of it from here—that money—can fairly feel it in the air he's breathing through a still-congested nose, clogging his lungs.

That could also be the phlegm.

Tim settles beside him, and Jason feels rather than sees him shrug. They both keep their eyes on the brash red and blue lights below.

"I brought you a present," his brother says, pulling a steaming to-go cup of coffee from under the shadow of his ridiculous cape.

Jason's eyes light. "You didn't," he protests, despite the way his gloved hands reach and curl around the offering. He sniffs, appreciative of the blend and just the littlest bit touched.

"Where's my cinnamon twist?" he asks to cut the fondness.

"In the fiery depths of hell, where it belongs," Tim replies. "I'm not giving refined sugar to an invalid."

"Screw you, Mom," Jason shoots back, but there's no real heat in it. He hasn't been able to actually taste anything in over a week. "Speaking of, where's Mommy 'Wing?"

Tim's silent for a moment, and Jason twists to see a tiny smirk on the replacement's exposed mouth, made evilly pleased by the flashing police lights.

"He's taking a nap, courtesy of the 'special tea' I made him earlier," Tim answers, affectionate and smug.

Jason sips, hisses as the java burns his tongue. "You sneaky shit. Knee still bothering him?"

Tim inclines his head, profile hard under the cowl. "Careful," he warns, "someone might think you're starting to care."

He snorts. The line's for show; they both know he gave up appearances years ago. They're too old now, have lived through too much, for games.

"What've we got?" Tim hedges around the silence. "I heard most of it on the scanner, but—I can't—it's not—"

"It's true," he confirms, and Tim deflates—in relief or disappointment, he's not sure. He's thankful, now, that they can't see the body, lying smack in the middle of the street and surrounded by tape and officers and bright lights, from here. It's not a sight he'll forget soon, and Tim doesn't need that. There's no closure in that.

"Saw it myself, kid. Pinky swear."

Tim shudders. "I couldn't let myself believe it, not until. You know."

"Yeah," Jason agrees. They have enough ghosts in their lives without searching out a new one. The man's dead, and Jason would leave it but he knows Tim, and he knows Tim won't.

"Method?" It's Red Robin's voice now, cool and collected, and not for the first time Jason wonders how the hell he turns it right off. It's not healthy, and Dick will mother the kid about it later, but god, Jason bets it's easier.

He hesitates still, because the answer isn't something they can let go.

"Execution style. Beheading," he says bluntly, because there's no other damn way to put it.

There's a tiny hitch in Tim's breathing, but it's gone between one blink and the next.

"Harkness…" Tim begins carefully. "I was not aware he'd been active lately, that he'd made enemies of the sort to…do this."

Jason feels a tiny pinch at the way the kid is trying so hard. He's always been like that, earnest and driven and sometimes infuriating. It's one of the things Jason hated (admired) most about him, back when they got their kicks from attempted fratricide.

Tim—bless him—loyal now and forever to their dead father.

Jason, though…well, like he said, dead is dead.

Jason shakes his head. "You don't have to do that, you know. Humanize him. He's dead, but that don't make up for a whole life of bad, Babybird. Do what you need to, but he was still a murdering bastard, and you're not obliged to give him anything."

Tim is still in the way that means Jason has poked too close to a bruise, quiet and startled like an animal. He nods slowly, thoughtfully, but doesn't meet Jason's eyes.

"Boomerang," he corrects, and his voice is harder. Jason feels a tiny thrill of pride, because it's Red Robin's _don't fuck with me_ voice, and he's partly responsible for that.

"He didn't." Jason answers belatedly. "Have enemies like that, I mean. Not that I could dig up, and I've got my ear so far to the ground it's practically in the gutter."

Tim hums, gives a pointed glance to Jason's muddied countenance.

"I see you've been playing in the dirt again." A slender hand snags his sleeve with an iron grip. "And ripped your favorite sweater," he says chidingly, fingering large, teeth shaped holes in Jason's jacket. "Horrid child."

"What can I say?" Jason smirks, equally casual, but he feels the way Tim's checks that the teeth marks don't go any deeper. He's fine. The day he's slower than an overgrown gator is the day he retires. "He may be a reptile, but he sings like a bird."

"You stink, by the way," Tim acknowledges, in the tone that means Dick will hear about this. A car door slams, below. "Medical examiner's here."

"Yup. You want the scoop with whipped cream and cherries on top, or am I just going to keep jawing until daylight?"

Tim scowls at him. "Shoot."

"Darling, you should never say that to a trigger-happy old cowboy like me."

Jason waits for Tim to do the frog face—his signature, eyebrows and mouth flat in parallel lines—before continuing.

"Our reptilian friend wasn't quite as helpful as I'd hoped. He didn't feel like performing, but after some persuasion," he grins wolfishly, "I convinced him to share. Mr. Knickers there," he says with a nod towards the mess in the street, "wasn't the first."

"First what?" Tim asks emotionlessly.

"Kill, headless two-bit baddie. C'mon, Baby B, keep up."

"Who?"

"No one important. Couple of small-timers, but they made ripple enough that Croc is talking—without even taking his pound of flesh, I might add."

"Shit," Tim says.

"Yeah, shit," Jason agrees.

"Got the murder weapon?"

He rolls his eyes. "What is this, amateur hour? Yeah, dude, I got it. Some sorta curved blade, maybe a sword, tapered. Fucking sharp though, severed the head with one blow. Clean."

Tim freezes up.

Jason's impressed, only took him about a second flat. Friggin' geek always was the smartest of them.

"You got it, nerd wonder?" There's no joke in it, no bite either.

Tim nods, and the cowl is more mask than usual. "I've got it. Tapered, curved. Could be a scythe, but I don't currently know any psychos parading around as the reaper. The other…"

Tim's mouth is hard and thin. His face is a garish mesh of blue and red flashing lights, purpling in an ugly imitation of bruises.

"Katana," he finishes. "Old. Probably from the Koto period, if I'm making assumptions."

Tim knows. Tim knows, and Jason won't say it. "If you were a betting man?"

"I don't bet without backing."

Tim's mouth quirks humorlessly and a gauntleted hand presses Kevlar covered ribs in remembrance of pain. "But I seem to recall a scar or two from a Koto era blade—square guard, Arabic lettering overlaid, notched grip."

Jason was afraid of that.

"I know the one," he agrees quietly. There are some things he doesn't want to know.

Tim's anger is palpable. "I won't let his goddamn name be a taboo any longer. You know it as well as I. Damian is come home, big brother. And he's killing."


End file.
